A.K.A. "civil war".

There are so many areas in France where the government has lost control, it could be argued that its national sovereignty is compromised. The last tally was 751 of the euphemistically named Zones Urbaines Sensibles (ZUS) or Sensitive Urban Zones, making a map of France look like Swiss cheese. Since 2002, they've officially stopped counting. The ZUS are urban and suburban areas where essential services like the police and fire departments cannot go without risk of violent attack by mobs of Arab youths.

In late 2005, attention focused on riots in the Parisian ZUS, when rampaging youth nightly torched cars and buildings. Not much has changed. "It's not just burning cars," says Olivier Guitta, Washington, D.C.-based international consultant. "They have devised plots where they actually call a fire truck to attract them into the neighbourhood and then they stone them and attack. The number of cops and firemen that have been injured over the last few years has been mindboggling."

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In 2006, approximately 2,500 police were injured attempting to bring the rule of law to these ZUS, so many that the head of a French police union declared France's Muslim population was engaged in a civil war against the state. In these lawless areas, women are mostly defenceless, and gang rapes are a common occurrence.

"Billions of euros have been spent since 1984 trying to reclaim these neighbourhoods," Guitta says. But the government insanely funds the Islamist groups fuelling the rage: "They would go to the government and say we need a community centre to entertain the youth, a cultural centre. So the government would pay for it, and then those guys would start brainwashing the Muslim population there, saying, 'You're not French. You're first and foremost Muslim. France doesn't want you.'"

France isn't the only country compromised--though it has Europe's largest Muslim cohort, at five to six million, or just under 10 per cent. The anarchy may be spreading. On Dec. 12, Norway's Aftenposten reported that rapes in Oslo had soared to a rate six times that of New York City. A 2001 police study indicated that two-thirds of their accused rapists were non-western immigrants. But since then, no similar studies have been dared. Anecdotally, similar situations exist in Belgium, Sweden and Demark, but since their governments and elite are committed to multiculturalism, not much is said officially.

The British face a more religious and radicalized Muslim population, a problem that prompted Prime Minister Tony Blair to say something. In a Dec. 11 address to the nation, he told immigrants to adopt British ways or stay away. This remarkable speech prompted The Daily Telegraph to conclude, "Blair formally declared Britain's multicultural experiment over."

But Blair's words haven't done much. Plans for a mega-mosque in East London are proceeding, despite local objections. The group building the new mosque is tied to Saudi-backed Wahhabi fundamentalism. Its capacity is 40,000, expandable to 70,000, while the U.K.'s largest Christian church, the Anglican Cathedral of Liverpool, holds 3,000. The British may console themselves with the thought that their Muslim population is following some sort of law, though perhaps not British.